1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a web service caching method based on a path-token for implementing an efficient web service call environment capable of rapidly modifying a request Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) message template according to a change in the number of inputs of a web service operation, and solving a problem of a request SOAP message being re-created when the number of inputs or input values are changed in the conventional web service caching method by including a path-token in an input node portion of the request SOAP message template in order to search for an exact input position, thereby implementing the efficient web service call environment.
2. Description of the Related Art
Web services are known as reusable software components which can call remote methods from the Internet-based distributed computing environment using open standards based on Extensible Markup Language (XML). The web services are implemented based on the XML-based standards of SOAP, Web Services Description Language (WSDL), and Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI). The SOAP is a message exchange protocol defining a format of a message which is transmitted or received between a web service provider and a web service requester. The WSDL is a service specification including a detailed description of the associated web services. The UDDI is a specification for a type of web service registry which registers and retrieves web services. The standards associated with the web services such as SOAP, WSDL, and UDDI are open standards based on XML. The SOAP and the WSDL are managed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) which deals with the standards associated with World Wide Web. The UDDI is a standard specification managed by the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) which is known by the electronic business XML (ebXML) set of specifications.
As described above, the web services are based on XML, and so the web services have advantages of good extensibility and flexibility. However, in terms of functions, there are problems in that processing speed decreases and memory consumption increases according to XML encoding/decoding. To solve the aforementioned problems, a web service caching method is used. In the method, a request SOAP message, once used, is cached, so that the SOAP message is reused when the same web service operation is called, thereby saving time and memory for creating the request SOAP message. However, when the number of inputs and input values of the web service operation are changed, the cached request SOAP message cannot be used, and so a new request SOAP message has to be created. When the number of inputs of the web service operation is changed, the number of the cached request SOAP message is different from the number of inputs of the new web service operation. Therefore, a request SOAP message having an input of the new web service operation is needed. When the input value of the web service operation is changed, the cached request SOAP message has the input value of the operation which is previously called, so that a result corresponding to the changed input value cannot be obtained. Therefore, as described above, the new request SOAP message is created. To cope with the change in the input values of the web service operation, tag information of the input of the changed web service operation is stored, and when the value is changed, the tag information is retrieved from the cached request SOAP message, so that the value may be modified. However, a portion to-be-modified cannot be retrieved by using only the tag information. This is because several inputs having the same tag information may exist in a message.
Accordingly, in order to implement an efficient web service call environment, the conventional web service caching method must be improved, and a new web service caching method is required to rapidly and actively cope with the change in input values and the number of inputs.